In 2009 my family adopted a child from Russia. All of our friends wanted to know how a single income family was able to save for a debt-free adoption. We are now adopting twin girls from Uganda. This blog is how God has grown our family.

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Thursday, June 9, 2011

What To Expect When We Come Home

I know this is a little premature but I was asked to write about this. When we brought Nolen home I did a poor job of preparing our friends for what to expect so here it is. This might seem crazy and extreme but please bear with us during this time. Please ask any questions you might have about the process.
We are advocates of attachment parenting our children. A child who has been institutionalized (in orphanage care) or who has had an unstable life can have difficulty attaching to their adoptive parents when the arrive in their permanent home. To help build this bond a style of parenting called attachment parenting has become common in many adoptive homes. This basically serves to promote as much of a bond as possible with the child and parents. In order to do this other people in our life will feel left out. We will do our best for at least 6 weeks to have only Chad or myself hold H and L. We will be the ones to meet their basic needs including providing food and changing diapers. During this time the girls will always be with one of us. For example when we brought Nolen home, instead of sticking him in the nursery on Sunday morning one of us stayed and played with him in the nursery.
If you are fortunate to see us out on one of our few outings please remember these things. The girls will more than likely reach for you but you can't hold them. You may talk to them but please do not pick them up. When we brought Nolen home it was difficult for people to no want to pick him up. He would reach up to everyone and smile with those precious dimples. He craved attention from anyone that would give it to him, a skill he learned in Russia. However, once he was placed in our family we needed to teach him we were his Mommy and Daddy. We needed to be the ones to meet his needs. If you do get to see our family in the first few weeks back please make special note to Sadie and Nolen. I am sure they are going to be craving attention also.
Why we will become recluses? I will use our little man for this example. Imagine you spent 17 months of your life in a baby bed. In a dark room with little noise and no stimulation. Now can you imagine what it was like for him to go from that environment to a Kroger or a Super Target. Extremely over stimulating, scary, and very overwhelming. We are not exactly sure of what life is currently like for the girls. I know they are not spending all of their days in a baby bed but I do expect them to be very overwhelmed with their new life. To help with a better and less scary transition we will as slowly as possible introduce them to their new life. Since they will stay at our home most of the time and we will stay with them; we will become recluses. We would love visitors at this time because Chad and I will need some adult interaction. I will repost this when we are about to bring the girls home.

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